PRECIOUS-Gold rebounds as bargain-hunting kicks in

By Anjana Anil and Ishaan Arora

April 28(Reuters) - Gold prices reversed course to edge higher on Monday as bargain-hunting kicked in, while market focus was on U.S.-China tradedevelopments and a slew of economic data.

Spot gold XAU= was up 0.4% at $3,332.59 an ounce as of 12:09 p.m. ET (1609 GMT) after falling as much as 1.8% earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures GCcv1 rose 1.4% to $3,344.0.

"We're starting to see the first signs of selling exhaustion," TD Securities commodity strategist Daniel Ghali said, adding that the downside risk in gold is extremely limited.

"Western investors, particularly discretionary traders or macro funds, have been completely under-positioned in this last leg of gold's rally and as a result of that, there's limited amount of selling activity and gold prices are drifting higher to reflect that."

Bullion, a traditional hedge against political and financial instability, rose to an all-time high of $3,500.05/oz last week due to elevated uncertainties.

U.S. President Donald Trump says progress has been made with China. However, Beijing has denied that trade talks are occurring and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent failed on Sunday to back Trump's assertion that tariff talks with China were under way.

"Until we witness clear patterns of lower highs, lower lows, and firm trade agreements rather than more political bluster from the Trump administration, the prospect of fresh highs for gold cannot be dismissed," said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and FOREX.com

The risk is high that the global economy will slip into recession this year, according to a majority of economists in a Reuters poll.

Data due this week includes the U.S. job openings report on Tuesday, Personal Consumption Expenditures on Wednesday, and the nonfarm payrolls report on Friday. Market participants will scan these to gauge the impact of the latest tariffs on the U.S. economy.

Spot silver XAG= eased 0.1% to $33.05 per ounce, platinum XPT= gained 1.2% to $983.0 and palladium XPD= was steady at $948.31.